• by Larry Dobrow , March 1, 2004

In terms of continuity, the publishing business is not often mistaken for, say, the public school system. Publishers and editors-in-chief come and go almost casually, their loyalists trailing in their wakes. While some pundits argue that the professional musical chairs keeps titles fresh (and staffers on their toes), the media community seems bemused by the frequent Rolodex updates.

Then there's Metropolitan Home. Twelve years after its purchase by Hachette Filipacchi Media, the magazine is still overseen by the same team - vice president/group publisher Anne Triece and editor-in-chief Donna Warner - who ushered the magazine through the rocky post-sale waters. And with the magazine recently upping its frequency by two issues per year and pushing its rate base to 600,000, it appears that the stability is paying dividends. "It obviously doesn't hurt," Triece acknowledges. "At this point, we're pretty much known entities."

Billing itself as "the quintessential magazine of contemporary design," Metropolitan Home occupies a peculiar place in the shelter landscape. On one hand, it has a handful of well-heeled competitors in Architectural Digest and Traditional Home. On the other, the magazine seems to have more in common stylistically with the glut of televised home-design programming than it does with any print property.

When this observation is shared with Triece over the phone, one can almost hear her nodding in agreement. "What you see on TV, whether it's a 'Queer Eye For the Straight Guy' or anything else, is kind of synergistic with what we do," she notes. "We provide a tangible, carry-around version of that. You can bring it with you to a designer or to Home Depot or Lowe's. That adds to our value."

While many competing publishers wax euphorically about the virtues of non-endemic advertisers, Triece isn't entirely sold on expanding the mag's range of ad categories at the expense of its bread-and-butter home products. "Our first goal is to be responsive to people who are selling products that are going into homes - furniture, furnishings, building products," she explains. "If you're a shelter magazine, you don't want to shift away from that, just like an epicurean magazine shouldn't be concentrating on cars. If your house is built on sandy soil, you're going to have trouble."

Which isn't to say that Metropolitan Home has eschewed non-endemic ads. The mag grew its ad pages by 17 percent in 2003; Triece estimates the growth stemmed just about equally from non-endemic marketers and endemic ones. Longtime supporters include Volkswagen, Altoids, Starbucks and Microsoft, while brands like Evian, Banana Republic and Song Airlines have recently come on board. As for potential targets, it's not surprising that financial services tops Triece's list. "Because of the amount of wealth and investible income our readers have, we should be able to do better here," she admits.

Those readers are probably Metropolitan Home's best selling point as Triece and her team set about jousting with buyers. Median reader age is 45.8, with household income at $123,000 and asset value slightly exceeding $1 million. The magazine predictably skews female (72 percent of readers), though it boasts more male readers than any other shelter title. Triece attributes this to the fact that MH "doesn't have a frou-frou feminine look. Men are looking for decorating advice, but not for chintz window treatments."

With a rate base of 600,000, Metropolitan Home is never going to be a mass-reach title. Still, Triece believes that the quality of the magazine and the demographic makeup of its readership should lure buyers willing to gloss over the numbers. "If somebody looks at CPM, we're not going to get the business," she concedes. "But we offer more in terms of audience and quality." Readers seem to agree: they've stuck around as the magazine has nudged up its cover price from $3.50 to $3.95 to $3.99 to $4.50 over a relatively short time frame. "You can't just make your money from advertising nowadays - readers have to pay their fair share," she continues. "It gives us the opportunity to put forth a superior product."

Triece brims with enthusiasm when talking about the magazine's upcoming frequency shift to eight issues per year, effective in October. "The demand is there," she says. "And to be honest, the extra issues give us the opportunity to provide more premium positions for clients." The just-closed May/June issue weighs in at 170 ad pages, and Triece expects bigger tallies later in the year.

One thing she hopes to address with potential clients in the months ahead is what she considers to be a misperception about the magazine's content and feel. "There's this belief that contemporary is a hard, cold look," she says. "I'm not going to say that it can't be minimalist, but it can also be very warm and inviting. It can be very pared down and simple."

MH is also likely to continue to play up its relationship with Hachette siblings Elle Décor and Home Magazine; the three titles are often bundled for advertisers.